When Tommy DeVito starts for the New York Giants at Dallas on Sunday, he will become the 10th rookie quarterback to start a game this season and the 47th overall.
Based on the astounding rate of attrition, it stands to reason that Green Bay Packers rookie Sean Clifford could join those lists.
Life as a backup quarterback is difficult. That’s especially true when you’re the backup to a young starter. With Jordan Love set to make his 10th career start on Sunday at the Pittsburgh Steelers, he needs every rep possible to get ready for gameday. Indeed, coach Matt LaFleur said, Love gets every rep during the practice week.
Clifford gets zero.
So, how does Clifford get ready – whether it’s to play a few snaps if Love breaks a shoelace or a few quarters if Love is injured?
“It’s a lot of mental preparation,” he said.
Clifford runs the scout-team offense against the No. 1 defense, so he’s able to stay sharp physically by throwing passes against Green Bay’s top defenders.
Love, however, takes all the offense’s reps against the scout-team defense. So, to get ready to play requires Clifford to be completely focused on every step of the game-week preparation. Because he won’t get any snaps against the Steelers’ favorite blitz package on third-and-long, it will be up to Clifford to digest that blitz package on film, thoroughly understand how the Packers will attack the blitz, then watch Love face that blitz on the practice field.
“Whenever 10’s up, just being behind [the offense] and going through my own footwork and saying, ‘OK, I’m throwing here. Perfect, he did the same,’” Clifford explained. “Or, ‘He threw here and I was thinking I would go there. Why am I having a different thought? Who’s right? Let’s have a conversation about it so that way we can both grow.’ In practice, it’s a lot of that.
“And then outside the facility, it’s a lot of tape and trying to text ideas to Matt and the coaching staff and get everybody as prepared as possible and cross every ‘t’, dot every ‘i’, just making sure that everyone’s ready. Through that process, it keeps me in the game. So, if, God forbid, I had to go, I’m prepared, as well.”
Clifford was a four-year starter at Penn State, so he knows the amount of work it takes to get ready to start a game. Being a backup requires the same amount of work. As the saying goes, you don’t have to get ready if you stay ready.
It also requires additional work to make up for the opportunities that aren’t given to him on the practice field. As an example, Clifford said he’ll stay after practice to work on the footwork for specific concepts that don’t have a corresponding play from that week’s opponent.
Clifford then shared a tremendous behind-the-scenes anecdote. On Saturdays, he and practice-squad quarterback Alex McGough will get together to help Clifford simulate the mental part of the game.
“Alex and I run through the call sheet, and he’ll call it to me and I’ll stand there and act like I’m in the huddle the same way I would be in the huddle,” Clifford said. “Not just say it but actually put myself in there and say, ‘All right, here we go.’”
Clifford then spits out the play call and snap count, just like he would if he were in the game, and then he steps to the line of scrimmages and goes through his pre-snap keys for that play.
So far, with Love taking every meaningful snap, preparation hasn’t become playing time. Aside from five clock-killing snaps at Chicago in Week 1, Clifford hasn’t played in a game since throwing 12 passes in the preseason finale on Aug. 26.
Mentally, Clifford believes his process has him ready. Physically, he thinks he’s ready, as well.
Being the scout-team quarterback is an important and selfless job. This week, along with having to master Green Bay’s game plan, Clifford needs to play like Kenny Pickett so the defense can get as good a look as possible to get ready for the Steelers.
“He does such a great job on the look team,” LaFleur said. “I think our guys do a pretty good job of trying to translate whatever play that is being run against the defense into the offensive terminology so that he’s getting real reps at it. In some ways, it’s a lot harder because you’re going against our best players.”
Not every play from the opponent can be found in the Packers’ playbook, though. So, how does Clifford stay sharp while running a play neither he nor his receivers have seen before?
“Football is football, at the end of the day,” Clifford said. “Certain things you just kind of look at the card and, ‘All right, I’m going to go one, two, three. I’m going to here vs. one-high or here vs. two-high.’ It’s really just the thought in my mind of going through progressions and reading defenses, so, if I did have to go out, I feel super-confident that I’d be able to do the same.
“It’s the same game that we’ve been playing for a long time. It’s just having that confidence and really that confidence in the game plan and knowing that down cold.”
If disaster were to strike and Clifford were to join the long list of quarterbacks who’ve played this season, is he more prepared to play in a game now, with two-plus months of behind-the-scenes work, or straight out of the preseason, when he was in a groove?
“I’ll be better than I would’ve been. For sure,” he said.
How so?
“Just the confidence that I have that every week, every day, really, I’ve gotten 1 percent better,” he said. “From 10 weeks ago, I’ve gotten that many days better, in my opinion. Every single day I’ve made a stride in some regard. Sometimes it’s a mistake that I’m learning from and I’ve learned from. I’d be ready to play my best ball.”
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